Workshop A

Staying Grounded: Emotional Regulation During Clinical and Teaching Encounters

Joseph Y Liao BS,¹ and Sadie Elisseou, MD ²

Department of Medicine, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Room R108

Given the emotional intensity of clinical and teaching interactions, it is inevitable that patients, learners, and faculty may experience feelings of distress or overwhelm. Learning skills to recognize and regulate these responses helps to preserve our own health and well-being, ensuring that we retain the capacity to provide safe and effective patient care. Emotional regulation can be nurtured as a core clinical skill. This session aims to provide a practical workshop to teach this skill and support physicians and other healthcare workers in the incredible work that they do.

Target Audience:

Clinicians, healthcare providers, and medical students who would like to learn how to apply emotional regulation in a clinicalsetting

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this workshop, learners will be able to:

1. Discuss and utilize the window of tolerance as a model for emotional regulation
2. Describe how grounding strategies can be used to facilitate emotional regulation in a variety of hypothetical clinical andteaching case scenarios
3. Practice self-regulation skills for use before, during, and after challenging interactions

Session Outline:

This workshop is adapted from previously successful medical student and faculty development sessions at Harvard Medical School. A medical student and faculty member from the BU Chobanian & Avedisian SOM Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Task Forcewill facilitate this workshop. Participants will receive a discussion guide with cases that draw from both clinical and teachingscenarios as well as a detailed handout with actionable tips for staying emotionally regulated during challenging encounters.Discussion will focus on using the “window of tolerance” and the key principles of TIC as tools to guide clinician well-being.